Core European growth is picking up. Late last year, I said growth disappointments would make the "Emu on time" outlook seem less probable by early 1997. Consumer spending would disappoint because of Maastricht masochism and the fiscal squeeze, and because of job losses and labour market deregulation.

The odds are against women scaling the heights in finance. Glass ceilings still exist and tradition favours men when it comes to senior promotions. Despite this a small group of very talented and determined women have triumphed. Euromoney has identified 10 outstanding women and another 40 of notable achievement.

Over the past three months Euromoney editor Garry Evans interviewed Ospel for a total of five hours, twice in Ospel's office in Basel and once last month, the day after the bank announced its 1996 results, by video link-up between London and Basel. The full 15,000-word text follows.

When the story broke it caused more excitement than the time when everyone was asking, "who shot Roger Rabbit?" Suddenly every banker from Frankfurt to Hong Kong wanted to know, "who at Dresdner Bank shot Simon Robertson?"